For some reason, I’ve thought a lot lately about Steve Jobs’ statement that: “People want to own their music.”

I love the work Steve did, and I respect his opinion. However, I don’t feel that way. I for one, don’t want to own my music.

Here’s why:

I love many different types of music. Techno, country, classical, indie, rock, hip-hop, modern, alternative, etc, etc. There are thousands of songs that I like, and, if I bought all of those songs, that would equal thousands of dollars. Then, as more music comes out, I would need to spend more money to keep up. In addition, there is all that time I would spend finding, purchasing, and downloading the songs, then organizing playlists. It takes time and money to own music.

I’m not against spending time and money one something I value, but when I can have access to MORE music, for LESS time and LESS money – – – its a no brainer for me.

I do not illegally download music in any way. I am completely against that and think it is dishonest and robs artists and musicians. It is stealing, plain and simple.

I use Pandora, and even occasionally listen to the radio. The radio bugs me most of the time, b/c most stations are still stuck in the 90’s, but times like Christmas yield great Christmas mixes on the radio.

With Pandora, I get unlimited listening, great playlists, and up-to-date music. Pandora is pretty great at making great “stations” and most of the time, I like the songs they play. If I don’t like the song, I just give it the ol’ “thumbs down” and it never plays again, or if I don’t feel like that song, I either skip it, or change stations. And the ads? They don’t bother me that much. I usually mute them anyways. To me, that is a small inconvenience for the big convenience of using Pandora. (And no, this isn’t a Pandora plug.)

So for me, I can either spend lots and time and lots of money finding and buying and managing the music I love, or I just use Pandora, and spend that time and money on something else.

Easy choice.